*No Decisions Yet

I talked to Amy, our adoption coordinator this Monday. She was just checking in to see how we were doing with all the bad news lately. After our conversation I have a little more hope. I learned that Vietnam is scheduled to become Hague accredited in March of 2009. That would mean that even if it closes in September, once they are Hague accredited, any other country that is Hague accredited would be able to adopt from there without any other signed agreements. In order for Vietnam to get Hague accredited, they would have to have a clean system, and I believe all adoptions would have to be the same - have similar financial requirements..... I hope I'm not putting too much hope into this possibility.

Other good news was that our agency received 4 referrals lately - 3 girls, one boy, which moves us up on the waiting list. We are still in the early 20's, but we must be in the earlier early 20's. If our agency continues to receive 3-4 referrals a month which was the trend before the latest issues, we would be somewhere between 8-12 on the list by September 1st. That means that if it closes, we would not be able to complete our adoption. However, if Vietnam reopens in March, we would stay in order on the waiting list, and likely receive our referral within a few months, and travel within a few months - probably next summer.

So, I have hope that with all these issues, it will merely mean we will have to wait a bit longer to hold our little girl. I do believe that the Lord has all this in His good and perfect plan for our lives, and that He will bring us together at the right time. Please pray that our faith would stay strong.

We still wonder if we should start an adoption in another country right now or not- especially if Vietnam never does reopen. Amy said that many other waiting families are pursuing other routes at the same time. One option in Nepal through our agency, but more likely for us is China special needs. Still, I think we will likely wait until September to make any decisions.

We even talk about Africa a bit more - or former Soviet states, but the reality is that it is very costly to do two adoptions at once, and we're not ready to pull out of Vietnam. We have grown accustomed to imagining a little Asian girl as part of our family, and the Lord will have to do some work to change that picture.

With the news that we will likely not receive a referral until at least next spring, we wonder if we should do something adventurous with the next year of our lives. The Lord has sure given us a passion for orphans, and we are researching and contemplating going abroad for a year and helping orphans hands-on while we wait for our second child. Not sure how or if it would work, but we'll see.